


under the beech trees, i promised you this

by wanderNavi



Series: tiny ships in the shadow of the behemoth [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, First Meetings, assholery and pure pain no comfort, in which navi writes more of the bad timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25888666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderNavi/pseuds/wanderNavi
Summary: Grima approaches, a false smile upon her lips. “How’s Morgan?” she has the nerve to ask.
Relationships: Frederick/My Unit | Reflet | Robin
Series: tiny ships in the shadow of the behemoth [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1236185
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	under the beech trees, i promised you this

**Author's Note:**

> Following the train of thought from the Exalt Lissa piece.

Frederick’s been meaning to ask Lady Tiki how to go about sleeping for a century for years now, but never got the chance and now never will get the chance. Now that she’s dead along with nearly everyone else. Honestly, he’s broken too many bones and too many hearts to still be in this business.

Incongruously for a being revered and hailed as a god, Grima depends on scouts and spies to gather information. Less so on the spies now, as once again, nearly everyone is dead, simplifying weeding. Which makes setting up diversions and encounters easier.

He shifts his left hand’s grip on his lance into a more ready stance as a rider on a horse approaches, the noisy dead behind her. The rider stills when she sees Frederick standing alone in front of a faintly glowing line carved into the earth. The troops pause at her raised hand and she dismounts.

Grima approaches, a false smile upon her lips. “How’s Morgan?” she has the nerve to ask.

“Not here,” Frederick tells her through his ashen anger. She pouts, but he doesn’t have time for whatever she’ll say next. He draws the glass vial from his side with his right hand and smashes it upon the magical line. The blood inside – Tiki’s blood, _Naga’s_ blood – spills upon the spell work greedily sucking up everything it can, flaring with a cold blue roar towards the sky, sealing off the path behind him.

Grima’s red eyes glow in her sneer. “Very well, since you’re so determined to die, I’ll oblige you. I’ll see my son soon enough.”

“No, you will not,” he says, lance in both hands. “He was never yours; he is Robin’s and mine.”

* * *

The new mercenary came to him for her pay, as per the contract they signed, and Frederick couldn’t see the back of her soon enough. True, her genuine accent was all over the place and impossible to pin down, but he had fought against enough Plegian soldiers to recognize their martial forms poured into the foundations of her blows. He didn’t want someone who could turn against her countrymen for money anywhere near the Exalt and Chrom.

“Lady Robin,” he called with the name – likely false – she gave. “This way.”

She turned and followed.

“I’m surprised you lot would have a knight pay your mercenaries instead of someone with lower rank and with less urgent tasks to fill their day,” she said as she accepted the bag with her coin and peered inside.

“As captain of this division, I make my decisions as I see fit,” he told her flatly. “My decisions are not to be questioned, especially not by an outsider.”

Her one uncovered eye flicked up to regard him carefully, searching him with the same wary suspicion he leveled upon her. She asked, “And will the captain of this division listen to suggestions, even from an outsider?”

Uncompromisingly, he replied, “That depends.”

“Based on your movements and the enemy’s retreat, their logical target for a new base is along the southern curve of the Dryne River. Your path carries you after them from the northeastern direction. However, the heavy rains are coming and the plains your cavalry ride through will become floodwaters. Split your division in two, so you may entrap them from the east and west instead.”

Frederick digested her words with a moment of silence, reviewing the maps in his head and determining to send a pegasus scout out to assess the elevations of the land she described. “And why are you telling me this?” he questioned.

She huffed, the loosely pinned loops of her bangs fluttering with her breath. “Because, _somehow_ , I like you folks more than anyone else I ever fought for. It would be a shame if the work you paid for in hiring me came undone due to stinginess from me unwilling to share valuable information the moment our contract ended.”

Slipping the bag of coins into the folds of her traveling cloak, she smiled and said, “Though if you feel up to rehiring me, sir captain, I won’t say no.”

* * *

What Grima lacks in Robin’s tactical might, she makes up with brutal strength. Where Robin preferred feints and entangling her opponents with the environment, Grima slams against Frederick’s defenses and tosses him into the ground and the crackling magical barrier. The Risen army stands mindlessly and dumb in the background as she personally slashes Frederick’s armor into pieces.

Each time Grima throws fire and lightning at him, he grits his teeth and dodges what he can, returning the favor with swipes with his lance against her sword. For all her snarling, she’s toying with him, drawing out his death for her amusement.

Well let her. The longer it takes for Frederick to die, the longer the children have to widen their head start between them and Grima’s army in the race towards the souped-up outworlds gate and escape into the past. Frederick already let three Exalts die on his watch, he won’t fail a fourth in his duties for all that Lucina never received a proper coronation and remains merely a princess.

Patience running dry, she swings her sword back, then stabs him with the strength of a cannon into his side where she’d cracked open a chink in his armor. All the air leaves his lungs in a punched-out gasp and she knocks him to the ground. Her sword passes straight through him and pins him to the dirt, a knee and a foot holding his hands down.

Barely out of breath, she coolly regards the blood spreading in the trampled grass and says, “Now do tell me, what is my darling son and his friends up to?”

“Not your son,” Frederick spits through the wet pain. “Never your son.”

“It’s cute you’re still trying to argue these semantics,” she tells him. “But Morgan is my child. Or am I not your wife? Did you not accompany me to visit my mother’s grave? Did you and I not see the aurora borealis together in the mountains of Ferox while rushing a message back to Chrom against the approach of winter? Did you not introduce me to your uncle and grandparents for permission to wed my hand?”

She lets go of her sword with one hand and slips Frederick’s helmet off. He yanks his face away from her too hot fingers as best he can, trying to pull his hands out from under their holds. Grima tsks and grabs him by the chin, dragging him back into facing her. With poisoned honey on her teeth, she asks, “Did you not promise to love me forever? Or have you broken that promise just as you broke your first promise to me that we made after I told you the truth of my bloodline?”

Frederick hisses, his vision speckling with pepper black spots. She leans forwards, more of her weight settling on his arms and the hand on his face shifting to cradle his cheek and jaw, as Robin had countless times before in bed, after a personal meeting, when she needed his attention.

“Weren’t you going to kill me before I could kill the Exalts?” she croons and places an acid kiss upon his lips as softly as the time Robin set her hand upon Frederick’s neck to guide him down into their first kiss. He jerks away, livid but weakening.

Laughing, Grima straightens back up and yanks her sword out of him with one smooth pull. Blood pours out of his wounds with renewed interest. As he fades, he hears, “I know what the crown princess is planning anyways. Your efforts haven’t diverted me more than an hour or two at most. Excellent try, dear Frederick.

“Thank you for your service. You’re dismissed now.”


End file.
